Local environmentalist groups vital to push for climate action

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Local environmental activists were rightly enthused on Monday hearing President Obama mention the fight to reduce greenhouse gases and control climate change in his inauguration address. It is an issue that for a variety of reasons the president had put on a side burner – if not a back one – during his first term, and for him to single it out as one of the initiatives that he wants to pursue with vigor during his second term must have come as music to their ears.

But we agree very strongly with one of those activists who said that presidential leadership, while important is not the be-all and end-all of action on this important issue. Community leadership is just as, if not more, critical for success.

“Obama is not going to follow through on it if he doesn’t see the support from the public, so that’s our job,” said Jim Wylie of the local chapter of the Sierra Club.

One of the ways that Chester Countians who feel strongly about the growing concern over the way our environment is changing would be to stand up and make themselves counted at a rally next month in Washington, D.C. that is being organized by activist groups.

Members of the Sierra Club of Chester County met on Monday to watch the inauguration and discuss their hopes over what may occur in the president’s second term.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” said Obama from the western front of the U.S. capitol, symbolically looking out at the expanse of the nation. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.”

The Sierra Club is initiating its own 100 Days, which will be focused on climate action. The objective of the initiative involves contacting the Obama administration in an attempt to make climate and clean energy issues a priority. Such an attempt will include making recommendations on confirming a “climate champion” as the Environmental Protection Agency’s director, and a strategy that unifies the various environmental campaigns.

Throughout the next two months, the environmental group’s members will be participating in various public action events, the most notable occurring on Feb. 17 at the Clean Air Rally on the National Mall in Washington.

Wylie, a volunteer for both the Sierra Club and the West Chester Borough Leaders United for Emission Reduction, said that he agrees with many of the initiatives the Sierra Club is hoping to promote to the presidential administration. Those items include holding fossil fuel “polluters accountable for their pollution,” rejecting proposals to import certain fuels and bring down the amount of fossil fuels exported, protecting communities from future climate disasters and having a plan to adequately respond to those disasters, protecting the environment and its wildlife from the impacts of fossil fuel development and climate disruption.

But if the organization’s pleas fall on deaf ears, there is not much they can to do convince those in Congress to change their minds.